How often do you hear the old adage Life isn’t a destination, it’s a journey? Pretty much all the time? Yeah, me too. How often do you take the time to enjoy the journey or at least reflect on it? If you are like me, not nearly enough.
On January 1, 2020, I sat down to review 2019, take stock of my writing goals for the year, and evaluate how I did. At first glance, I didn’t do very well. In fact, some might even say I failed in 2019. To be truthful, that was my first reaction too.
2019 Goal
I only had one writing goal for 2019. Publish my novel. It was the same writing goal I have had each year since 2017. Guess what? It didn’t get published or finished in 2017, 2018 or 2019. Actually, I think the term finished is relative. Even though my novel still needs tweaks, I consider it finished. But my goal for 2019 was to publish it and that definitely didn’t happen.
But then I started looking back on 2019 and I realized that I had an amazing year writing-wise.
- I screwed up the courage to attend my FIRST EVER writing class.
- I finally told a select group of friends that I had written a novel.
- I joined several online writer groups.
- I found an editor.
- Based on the editor’s feedback on a sample edit, I completely edited my novel again before sending it to her for a full edit.
- My editor’s feedback increased my confidence enough so that I allowed my friends to read what I had written.
- I wrote and submitted a short story to a competition.
- I wrote 20,000 words of a follow-up novella for my first novel.
- I have outlined the first novel for another series.
- I started calling myself a writer when talking to other writers.
2019 was a huge year for me not only in terms of actually writing but also in increasing my confidence in my writing ability. I didn’t reach my goal of publishing my novel, but I feel that during the journey I accomplished so much more than I ever thought to ask for.
2020
My goal for 2020 is, once again, to publish my novel. I also have goals to finish and publish a novella and to polish a short story so that it can be a reader magnet for my series. But in addition to those tangible, measurable goals, I am setting the goal for myself to enjoy the journey and to recognize and celebrate the achievements along the way.
